MASSÉNA, André (1758—1817), duke of Rivoli, prince of Essling, and marshal of France, the greatest soldier and greatest general of all Napoleon’s marshals, and the one man who with education and ambition might have been Napoleon’s rival, was the son of a small wine merchant, it is said of Jewish origin, and was born at Nice on May 6, 1758. His parents were very poor, and he began life as a cabin boy. He did not care much for the sea, and in 1775 enlisted in the Regiment Royal Italien, a regiment of Italians in the pay of France. He quickly rose to be underofficer-adjutant; but, finding his birth would prevent his ever getting a commission, he left the army in 1789, retired to his native city, and married. At the sound of war, however, and the word republic, his desire to see service increased, and he once more left Italy, and joined the 3d battalion of the volunteers of the Var in 1792. In those days when men elected their officers, and nearly all the old commissioned officers were dead or had emigrated, promotion to a man with a knowledge of his drill was rapid, and by April 1793 Masséna was chef de bataillon, or colonel. His regiment was one of those in the army of General Anselme, which was ordered to occupy Nice, and his knowledge of the country, of the language, and of the people was so useful that in December he was already general of division. In command of the advanced guard he won the battle of Saorgio in August 1794, capturing ninety guns, and after many successes he at last, on November 23, 1795, with the right wing of the army of Italy, won the great victory of Loano, in which four thousand Austrians and Sardinians were put hors de combat. In Bonaparte’s great campaigns of 1796 and 1797 Masséna was his most trusted general of division; in each ...battle he won fresh laurels, until the crowning victory of Rivoli, from which he afterwards took his title. It was during this campaign that Bonaparte gave him the title of enfant chéri de la victoire, which he was to justify till he met the English in 1810. Masséna’s next important service was in command of the army in Switzerland, which united the army in Germany under Moreau, and that in Italy under Joubert. There he proved himself à great general; the archduke Charles and Suwaroff had each been successful in Germany and in Italy, and now turned upon Masséna in Switzerland. That general held his ground well against the archduke, and then suddenly, leaving Soult to face the Austrians, he transported his army to Ziirich, where, on September 26, 1799, he entirely defeated Suwaroff, taking two hundred guns and five thousand prisoners. His campaign and battle placed his reputation on a level with that of his compatriot Bonaparte, and he might have made the revolution of Brumaire, but he was sincerely attached to the republic, and had no ambition beyond a desire to live well and have plenty of money to spend. Bonaparte, now first consul, sent him to Genoa to command the débris of the army of Italy, and he nobly defended Genoa from February to June to the very last extremity, giving time for Bonaparte to strike his great blow at Marengo. He now went to Paris, where he sat in tue Corps Législatif in 1803, and defended Moreau, but where Napoleon took his measure, and did not interfere with him. In 1804 he was made one of the first marshals of France of the new régime, and in 1805 was decorated with the Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honour. In that year Napoleon needed an able general to keep in check the archduke Charles in Italy, while he advanced through Germany with the grand army. Masséna was chosen; he kept the archduke occupied till he got news of the surrender of Ulm, and then on October 30th utterly defeated him in the battle of Caldiero. After the peace of Pressburg had been signed, Masséna was ordered to take possession of the kingdom of Naples, and to place Joseph Bonaparte on the throne. This task done, Napoleon summoned Masséna to Poland, where he as usual distinguished himself, and where he for the time gave up his republican principles, and was made duke of Rivoli. In the campaign of 1809 he covered himself with glory at Landshut and at Eckmühl, and finally at the little village of Essling, which he held with such determination that Napoleon had some right to call his otherwise complete defeat of Aspern a victory. When the retreat to the island of Lobau was ordered, it was Masséna who covered the broken regiments, and held the tête du pont ; and on the field of Wagram it was Masséna who, though too ill to ride, directed from his carriage the movements of the right wing, and recovered the honour of France. For his great services he was created prince of Essling, and given the princely castle of Thouars. He was then ordered to Spain to “drive the English into the sea.” The campaigns of 1810 and 1811, the advance to and the retreat from Torres Vedras, are well known from Napier’s history, who does full justice to Wellington’s great opponent. Masséna himself ascribed his failure to the frequent disobedience of his three subordinate generals Ney, Reynier, and Junot, and with some justice; but he alone could have stayed so long before the lines, and could have made the long halt at Santarem, which checked Wellington so thoroughly. The retreat was as finely conducted as the advance, and would have been even more triumphant had Ney obeyed orders. Even then he was again ready to try his fortune, and nearly defeated Wellington at Fuentes d’Onoro, though much hampered by Bessières. Recalled with ignominy, his prestige gone, the old marshal felt he had a right to complain of Ney and of Napoleon himself, and, it is said, opened communications with Fouché, and the remnant of the republican party. Whether this be true or not, Napoleon gave his greatest marshal no more employment in the field, but made him merely commandant of the 8th military division, ∖vith his headquarters at Marseilles. This command he still held at the restoration of the Bourbons, when Louis XVIII. confirmed him in it, and gave him letters of naturalization, as if the great leader of the French armies had not ceased to be an Italian. When Napoleon returned from Elba, Massena, probably by the advice of Fouché, kept Marseilles quiet to await events, the greatest service he could do the royalists, but afterwards imputed to him as a fault. After the second restoration Masséna was summoned to sit on the court martial which tried Marshal Ney, but, though he had been on bad terms with that general, and attributed his own disgrace to him, the old soldier would not be his comrade’s judge. This refusal was used by the royalists to cruelly attack the marshal, against whom they raked up every offence they could think of, and whose victories they forgot. This annoyance shortened his life, and on the 4th April 1817 the old hero died. He was buried in Père-la-Chaise, with only the word “Masséna” upon his tombstone.
In private life indolent, greedy, rapacious, ill-educated, morose, on the field of battle Masséna λvas a man of genius, prompt in resource, indefatigable, perfectly brave, and never knowing when he was beaten. Italian he always was in his indolence, but in his quickness of resource a real compatriot of Napoleon himself.
See Thiébault’s Éloge funèbre, and Koch’s Mémoires de Masséna, 4 vols., 1849, a most valuable work, and most carefully compiled. See also the military histories of the epoch, but in reading Napier’s pictures of him and Soult it is well to remember that author’s personal friendship with the latter.
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